In a candid interview on the Jeff Fenster Show, entrepreneur and real estate investor Kent Clothier shares his remarkable journey from making millions to facing financial ruin within a mere two years. Kent's story serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of humility, resilience, and the willingness to learn from our mistakes.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 By the time I was 27, I was running an $800 million a year business.
00:04 By the time I was 30, we were doing $1.9 billion.
00:07 It only took me two years to lose every dollar I'd ever earned.
00:10 The only way to know the edge is to go a little too far.
00:13 And I look back, and I'm not proud of this, but I look back and I was so...
00:18 [music]
00:31 Today on the show, we have a remarkable entrepreneur
00:34 who started his journey in the grocery industry alongside his father,
00:37 eventually building it into a multi-billion dollar empire.
00:40 But when he realized it wasn't where he truly belonged,
00:43 he took a massive leap of faith, unknowingly losing everything over the next 24 months.
00:47 With less than $4,000 to his name, he ventured into real estate wholesaling,
00:51 turning that small investment into over a million dollars in just 18 months.
00:56 Today, he's dedicated to helping others accelerate their success through coaching,
01:00 investing, and masterminds like The Boardroom,
01:03 and his no-nonsense education and proven software business success, The Rue Academy.
01:08 Please welcome to the show, my good friend, Kent Clothier.
01:12 Welcome to the show, Kent.
01:15 Thanks, brother. Glad to be here.
01:16 Dude, it's been such a fun experience getting to be friends with you for so long
01:20 and now have you here in my studio and getting to have you on this.
01:23 This is amazing. I am so impressed, brother.
01:25 Congrats. This looks incredible.
01:27 Thank you. Thank you. You've been one of the guests I've been waiting
01:29 and waiting to get on because we've been friends since way before the current
01:34 industries that I'm in. Going back in, I think we met in 2011 or 12.
01:39 I think 12.
01:40 2012.
01:41 So what are we, 11 years?
01:42 11 years.
01:43 Dude, that's wild.
01:44 It is wild. And just to see your growth from where – I mean,
01:47 you've made so many massive pivots.
01:49 But my favorite story and where I want to introduce our audience to is actually
01:53 going back to – I think you were 17 years old when you started in the grocery industry.
01:58 Yeah.
01:59 17?
02:00 I was 17, yeah. I started my first business right next to my father in the grocery industry.
02:07 And what were you doing exactly in the grocery industry?
02:09 So in the grocery industry – and this is as – well, it's just 30 years later,
02:16 35 years later. This is a lot more common than it was back then.
02:19 But back then, finding a product that a manufacturer was selling for a discount
02:27 and then turning around and buying it somewhere, whether that was a grocery store
02:32 or a distributor or wholesaler, whoever it was, and then turning around
02:36 and effectively putting it on a truck, marking it up and shipping it somewhere else
02:39 where it wasn't being sold at a discount, all of that was very uncommon back then.
02:43 Today, people do this all the time where they go into – they go find something –
02:47 you hear Gary Vee talking about it on going to garage sales and selling stuff on eBay.
02:52 Well, that little arbitrage play is a lot more common today.
02:56 But back then, this was pre-internet, pre-any kind of technology.
03:01 So it was really hard to find all this stuff.
03:02 Really hard to find it, and my father was in the grocery industry.
03:06 So I grew up in the grocery industry and noticed – we noticed that a lot of items
03:13 that are in a grocery store – there's 45,000 items in a grocery store –
03:19 that a lot of times when we were buying for our own grocery store,
03:23 the manufacturers or the distributors were selling the exact same item
03:27 at very different prices.
03:29 To different grocery stores or inside the store?
03:31 To us.
03:32 So one company would be offering us a case of Maxwell House coffee for $45,
03:37 and the guy right down the street would be trying to sell it to us for $80.
03:40 And the reason why that was happening is that the manufacturers
03:44 were offering some discount to this supplier, and they were just passing it on.
03:49 And kind of a light bulb went off because that happens every day.
03:52 What happens if I just go buy it from this guy who wants to sell it to me for $45?
03:57 I'll pay him $47.
03:58 And then if I put it on a truck and go sell it to this guy that's trying to sell it to me at $80,
04:02 I'll sell it to him at $60.
04:05 And I wonder if we can make money.
04:08 And before you knew it, when I was 23, we were running a $50 million-a-year business.
04:12 By the time I was 27, I was running an $800 million-a-year business.
04:17 By the time I was 30, we were doing $1.9 billion.
04:21 Grew very quickly.
04:22 That's $1.9 billion with a B.
04:24 With a B.
04:25 And we were the seventh largest privately held company in the state of Florida at the time.
04:29 But something happened.
04:31 You decided it wasn't for you.
04:33 Yeah, you know, when you're a young guy, we're all just a product of our own experiences, right?
04:39 And when you're very successful from 17 to 30, you don't have any--
04:45 and you haven't really taken any of those hits yet in life.
04:48 You just don't-- I had no understanding of how unique my experience was because it was mine.
04:54 And so I thought it was perfectly normal to be 23 years old making millions of dollars
05:01 and living this big life.
05:04 And I just-- and again, it wasn't like I was like some of these clowns we see on social media.
05:10 I mean, I was running a business, right?
05:12 So I was married, driven, hardcore, et cetera, but still very, very successful.
05:19 But unknowingly, I was also extremely cocky, meaning that all you had to do was ask me,
05:25 and I'd be all too happy to tell you why we were so successful, and it was all because of me.
05:30 Right?
05:31 I had no problem.
05:33 And again, because I just had no perception of true reality, right?
05:39 My reality was my reality, but true reality was something quite different.
05:42 And so, yeah, my business partners and I got into a heated discussion on March 14th of 2000,
05:51 and in about three minutes, I decided I'm out and literally never thought about it
05:57 one minute prior to that conversation and just walked out of there and decided I was going to go start over.
06:03 So heated conversation over a 1-- you have a $1.9 billion business.
06:08 Correct.
06:09 This must be more than a heated conversation.
06:11 I mean, it couldn't just be--
06:13 So the color to the story is that when we were an $80 million company or an $87 million company
06:22 operating in Memphis, Tennessee, we sold our company to a much larger organization, right?
06:28 And at the time, they were doing, I don't know, $300 or $400 million.
06:32 And those owners, two young guys that were both like 40 years old, basically came to me,
06:37 this 23-year-old kid, and said, "Hey, we bought this company to get you because we want you to come and run our company."
06:44 And so I spent the next seven years helping them build that company.
06:49 Well, that must have been flattering at the time.
06:52 Yeah. Well, you know what? Again, ironically, I didn't think it was a big deal.
06:56 Now that I'm long past 40, I look back and I'm like, "What in the heck were they thinking?"
07:01 But it seemed perfectly feasible and reasonable to me at the time for some reason.
07:06 I have no idea.
07:07 But taking a company like that, and again, from $300 to $500, $500 to $800, $800 to $1.8 billion,
07:16 it was an amazing time, amazing journey.
07:18 And I was making millions of dollars, but I didn't have ownership anymore because I had sold it.
07:25 And so at the end of that year, financials had just come out.
07:32 Year-end audited financials.
07:34 Here we are at the end of February, first part of March,
07:37 and I'm seeing just how much more net profit these guys are putting in their pocket,
07:42 and it is significant.
07:44 And I basically walked in and said, "Listen, I'd love to be able to get some of my equity back,
07:52 1%, 2%, whatever it is."
07:54 I feel like I've kind of earned the right to have that conversation.
07:56 And then looking back, it was completely cavalier.
08:03 It just meant nothing.
08:05 But at the moment, it meant everything to me.
08:07 That was met with a, "Gee, you must be kidding, right?
08:12 Are you serious?"
08:14 And that just went immediately right through me.
08:18 And again, young, cocky, brash, I was like, "That was not the response I was looking for.
08:24 Do you want me to resign?"
08:26 "Absolutely not.
08:27 You know what?
08:28 Screw this.
08:29 I'll resign.
08:30 I'm out.
08:31 See you."
08:32 That's just like that.
08:33 No, no, nothing.
08:34 No context, no conversation, no--
08:37 And did they throw everything at you, including the kitchen sink?
08:40 For about the first 48 hours, everybody was in shock
08:43 and trying to figure out how to put it all back together.
08:47 And again--
08:48 Because you walked out, and again, you made millions of dollars a year.
08:51 Millions of dollars.
08:52 We're not talking hundreds of thousands.
08:53 I was, again--
08:55 And I look back, and I'm not proud of this,
08:57 but I look back, and I was so cocky, so naive,
09:05 that I actually believed that I could go out and start another business
09:10 in the same industry, because I was the golden child of this industry,
09:13 as you can imagine, right?
09:14 This 30-year-old kid that had helped build this empire.
09:18 And immediately, the moment I walked out the door,
09:21 I have every competitor, every bank,
09:24 everybody's trying to throw money at me to get--
09:27 "Let's just do this with you now," right?
09:29 So when you look at it through all those lenses,
09:31 I believed I could go start another company.
09:33 I could go be up and running in a matter of a few months,
09:35 and I would own the whole thing now.
09:37 And so it was all that kind of--
09:38 Got me into that headspace really fast, which none of it played out.
09:42 Only took me two years to lose every dollar I'd ever earned.
09:46 Every dollar.
09:47 And completely financially ruined me.
09:49 Do you think it didn't play out because the times were different,
09:53 and so you had to--
09:55 Starting over is always--
09:57 There's a first-mover's advantage.
09:59 There's an advantage of having validation in the marketplace.
10:02 There's a huge difference from even doing the same tactics
10:06 that allowed you to be successful there.
10:08 Starting over against basically what you built
10:10 means your strategies aren't unique now
10:12 because you're competing against yourself.
10:14 Well, all that's true for sure.
10:18 The single biggest reason that whole thing went down
10:22 was because of me because I did start a competitor
10:24 and did open up a warehouse facility and hired people
10:28 and started a whole new business based out of Memphis now,
10:32 moved back up there.
10:34 But I had no appreciation for what I didn't know
10:40 and certainly had nobody--
10:44 and this is where partners come in very handy--
10:48 is I had nobody there to check and balance me
10:52 to where my pride was playing massive,
10:56 was making big decisions for me.
10:58 I didn't like losing.
11:00 I didn't want to lose.
11:01 And so as me and my prior partners are suing each other
11:04 and in litigation, going back and doing all this kind of stuff
11:07 all because of me and my decision,
11:11 I just bled to death.
11:13 Like the bad gambler sitting at the blackjack table
11:17 asking for another marker, another marker.
11:19 Well, that was me with business, except it's real money, my money.
11:21 And it was $100,000 attorney's bills,
11:24 another $200,000, $300,000, every month.
11:26 And then you look up and you're like, man,
11:29 the most valuable lesson through that little experience
11:31 was understanding that litigation is rarely the route you want to go
11:36 and is anybody who goes down that route,
11:42 it isn't about winning or losing.
11:44 There's only one winner in litigation, and it's the attorneys.
11:46 Well, I would argue that's for sure,
11:48 but it's about who's going to cry uncle first.
11:50 Of course.
11:52 And I was just too foolish to cry.
11:54 But I want to go back to something you said
11:56 because I think that it's one of the most profound statements
11:59 I've heard in a very long time.
12:01 You had no appreciation for what you didn't know.
12:04 If everybody had a pause button
12:07 and could go back and stop the world in that moment
12:10 when they think that what they're doing is right
12:12 and they lack that appreciation for what we don't know,
12:16 trillions of dollars are lost as a result of this.
12:18 There's no doubt.
12:19 There's no doubt.
12:20 Marriages are broken as a result of this.
12:21 Well, but I can also tell you,
12:24 you know, again, multiple things can be true at the same time.
12:29 I, while that is true, the reality of the situation
12:35 is I would not be here talking to you
12:38 if I had made a different decision.
12:40 That's true.
12:42 So when I look back at it,
12:45 so my point being is like for all the trillions that are lost,
12:48 there's probably trillions that were made
12:50 because I would not be who I am in business,
12:53 in real estate, as a father, as a husband,
12:55 and any of that stuff because I wasn't mentally humble enough.
13:00 I wasn't prepared enough.
13:01 None of those things.
13:03 I was a fraction of the guy that I am today.
13:06 I didn't know that then.
13:07 So I needed to be humiliated.
13:08 I needed to be humbled.
13:09 I needed to lose.
13:10 I needed to get banged around.
13:12 I needed to get a really good understanding school of hard knocks
13:17 of what it looks like to, you know, get your teeth knocked in
13:20 and just maybe better.
13:22 But I think what you're saying is so true,
13:25 especially of all high achievers,
13:26 because if you really want to push your own personal envelope
13:29 or the envelope in anything,
13:30 the only way to know the edge is to go a little too far.
13:33 Yeah.
13:34 And sometimes when you go a little too far,
13:35 it's a hard fall.
13:37 Well, you know, I equate it to this,
13:39 is that imagine, because I talk to a lot of –
13:44 I know you do as well.
13:45 I talk to a lot of new entrepreneurs, a lot of people.
13:47 Imagine if, you know, you went into anything.
13:53 Well, let's just use like becoming a great MMA fighter.
13:58 If you were going to become a great MMA fighter
14:01 and you knew like that in order for that to happen,
14:06 one thing is for sure got to happen.
14:09 I have to get in the ring and I have to get hit
14:12 and I have to be prepared to get knocked out, choked out, bruised,
14:15 bumped, bloody, all that stuff.
14:18 That just kind of comes with the territory.
14:20 It is a complete expectation.
14:22 And in doing that, I am perfectly prepared to learn the lessons
14:27 by getting hit, right?
14:29 And I think unfortunately, you know, what a lot of people do
14:34 is they try to avoid pushing it a little too far
14:38 because they don't want to get hit.
14:40 And the reality – those are the best lessons in life.
14:42 You'll figure stuff out real quick when you get hit.
14:46 And the only way to know that is to get in the ring
14:48 and to play completely full out all the time, maximum effort,
14:53 and then, yeah, with a logical understanding
14:58 that if I go this hard, this fast, then I'm probably going to run into a few walls.
15:02 That's okay, right?
15:04 It is okay.
15:05 It's important on that journey.
15:07 Yeah, absolutely.
15:08 It's the best.
15:09 You learn more from losses than from wins.
15:11 What's the alternative?
15:12 I mean, if I went and listened to every podcast or read every book
15:17 and watched every YouTube video out there about how to become a great fighter
15:22 without ever stepping in the ring, I would sound like a moron.
15:27 I would say, "Yeah, I think I'm a great fighter now."
15:29 I haven't actually done it, but I think a lot of people try to avoid
15:33 the actual getting in the ring and, more importantly,
15:36 getting in the ring and getting hit.
15:37 Because it sucks.
15:38 Because it sucks.
15:39 It sucks.
15:40 It's not fun.
15:41 It's not fun.
15:42 But, man, it is so valuable.
15:44 It's also the peak that makes ultimate success so much more valuable,
15:50 so much more desired because it's not available for everybody.
15:55 It is available for everybody in concept.
15:57 The opportunity is.
15:58 The opportunity is available, but most won't get in the ring and get hit.
16:02 No.
16:03 I mean, you can count on your competition's mediocrity.
16:05 Correct.
16:06 The vast majority of people are not cut out to be great,
16:11 and it's unfortunate because I believe everybody's got it in them,
16:15 but they don't have an understanding of just how hard you've got to be willing
16:21 to get hit.
16:22 And they don't understand that.
16:23 I was telling somebody the other day that in all my years in business,
16:28 I've definitely figured out that you have to figure out what level of pain,
16:34 what level of trauma you're willing to fall in love with.
16:37 Because if you don't love the pain and you don't love the trauma
16:40 and you don't love getting knocked around, then you will stop.
16:46 And so I think that that was, again,
16:49 that was probably the most valuable thing that happened to me.
16:52 I was not mature enough, although I believed I was,
16:56 because I'd achieved a massive success most would never achieve
16:59 in their entire lives.
17:00 The reality of it was I just wasn't.
17:02 I wasn't ready.
17:03 I wasn't ready to be the guy I needed to be,
17:08 and I needed to get humbled and knocked down and build it all back up
17:11 in order to become the--that evolution was necessary for me.
17:14 And I'll be honest.
17:15 I never knew that Kent.
17:17 The Kent I've known for the last 11, 11 1/2 years
17:20 is one of the most successful, humble human beings I know.
17:24 To me, it's one of your superpowers is that--I've been to your house in La Jolla.
17:28 It's one of the most gorgeous houses you can be at.
17:30 I mean, your view is something that should be in a hotel.
17:34 Your businesses are all extremely successful.
17:36 You have the track record in the back of the baseball card
17:41 to walk with that air of superiority and believe it.
17:45 The fact that you don't and you are as humble as you've been
17:47 since the day I met you shows, I mean, that you've had that transformation.
17:52 Yeah.
17:53 I don't know the early Kent.
17:55 Maybe it'd be a different experience.
17:57 Oh, there's no doubt.
17:58 [laughter]
18:00 Maybe we wouldn't be friends today.
18:01 That guy was not somebody you would necessarily--
18:04 I mean, that guy is still in there, but that guy was just--
18:07 again, he was a kid.
18:08 But that guy now is probably the one pushing the levers of confidence,
18:12 courage, knowing in the back of your mind that,
18:15 "Hey, I have a formula. I will be successful
18:18 regardless of how many times I get punched."
18:20 That's exactly right.
18:21 And that's the key is, yes, you're going to get punched.
18:24 Yes, it's going to hurt.
18:26 Yes, I have a high threshold for pain.
18:28 But at the end, I'll still be standing and I'll find a way.
18:32 I'll make a way.
18:33 And that's how you can lose a billion dollar--
18:36 a company that's worth $1.9 billion
18:38 and lose hundreds of millions of dollars
18:41 and rebuild it all in such a short period of time.
18:45 As an entrepreneur, I know how meaningful it is
18:47 to invest in the people and causes that are close to me.
18:51 And on GoFundMe, it's easy, safe, and powerful to do just that,
18:55 whether you're supporting a family member, friend, local business, or charity.
19:00 And whenever you make a donation,
19:02 you're protected by the GoFundMe giving guarantee.
19:05 Visit GoFundMe.com today
19:08 to help make a positive difference in your community.
19:12 [music]
19:15 Hey, fitness fans. Ready to crush your fitness goals?
19:18 Make your move to Eos Fitness,
19:20 where becoming a member starts at just $9.99 a month.
19:23 Gyms are open 24/7 and packed with the latest gym equipment
19:27 to keep your workouts fresh.
19:29 What are you waiting for?
19:30 Give them a call, drop by, or hit up jefffenster.com/eos to join.
19:35 Eos Fitness--better gym, better price.
19:39 Now, let's get after those goals.
19:42 So you're 27.
19:44 - 30 at that time. - You're 30.
19:46 - You've just lost millions of dollars. - Yep.
19:48 - Basically broke? - Oh, for sure broke.
19:51 I mean, literally wiped myself out.
19:53 Again, back to the whole pride,
19:56 because when I restarted or started the new business,
20:01 rather than file for bankruptcy, like I should have,
20:06 personally and professionally, just decided to wipe myself out,
20:10 pay all the creditors, didn't want ever to be a black mark on my name
20:14 from an integrity standpoint.
20:16 The entire system was designed to protect me,
20:18 and I just had too much pride to do it.
20:20 And by the way, it wasn't just about doing the right thing.
20:22 It was about pride.
20:24 It was about I just didn't want to be seen as that guy.
20:26 And unfortunately, that took me down to where I had
20:30 less than $10,000 in the bank.
20:31 But I would argue it wasn't the right thing.
20:33 It might have been the prideful thing.
20:35 It might have been the feel-good thing.
20:37 But the right thing to do for Kent and your business
20:40 was to use the tools available to you, which is bankruptcy.
20:43 - Yeah. - That was the right thing to do.
20:45 - Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, that's what it is designed for.
20:47 - Correct. - But my pride would not allow that to happen,
20:50 and that was a poor decision.
20:52 It would have made a significant difference
20:55 in my ability to move on.
20:57 Instead, I had to suffer through many more years
21:00 than were necessary, but that's okay.
21:02 I don't look back on any of that.
21:04 If you had told me during that entire time
21:06 that at some point in my life,
21:08 I would look back on that time fondly and say,
21:11 "Thank God that happened," I'd tell you you're crazy.
21:14 But that's actually the way it's--
21:16 - Were you married at that time?
21:18 - I wasn't. I'd recently gotten divorced when it all started.
21:21 But then after I got out of the grocery industry,
21:24 basically got my back up against the wall,
21:27 lost everything, then started in real estate,
21:31 and then got married to Seema six months later.
21:34 - Okay, so when you were going through the doomsday,
21:37 you were all alone. - Yeah.
21:39 - Solo man. - Yeah, and it was bad.
21:41 I mean, I was suicidal, and I don't say that jokingly.
21:44 It was my darkest, you know,
21:48 really heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy thoughts.
21:51 And I was in massive depression.
21:54 I'd been at the very top of the mountain,
21:56 as high as anybody I knew in my world had gotten to at my age.
22:00 And I wasn't good enough to lose every dollar.
22:03 Well, I had to burn every relationship all the way down.
22:06 So I'd been in this entire industry.
22:08 Every friend, all of my social circle,
22:11 everybody was involved in this, in my business.
22:14 And when you're working from 6 o'clock in the morning
22:17 to 8 o'clock at night, all your friends are in the business.
22:20 And so by virtue of me suddenly having this entire meltdown,
22:25 my entire life was gone.
22:28 And so, very traumatic.
22:31 - When you go back to that time period,
22:34 was there some event, something that changed your perspective
22:38 and allowed you to start crawling out, or was it just--
22:41 - No, actually, I would love to tell you,
22:44 make for a better story, the reality of it was,
22:47 is I knew I was in a really bad spot mentally and hurting.
22:57 And somewhere, and I wasn't relying on faith,
23:01 I've never been a particularly hardcore religious guy,
23:05 although I do have faith.
23:07 So it wasn't like I was going to church,
23:09 I wasn't getting counseling, it wasn't anything like that.
23:11 It was really just more about refusing to play the victim.
23:15 And I just decided every single day
23:22 that I was going to try to move a little bit further,
23:24 a little bit further, a little bit further.
23:26 And then one night, late night infomercial
23:31 talking about how you can go flip houses.
23:34 Literally, I guess when you look back,
23:36 it probably saved my life because I was just desperate enough
23:41 to go check it out and went down to an Embassy Suites
23:44 in West Palm Beach, Florida, I'll never forget it.
23:46 And they were talking about flipping houses
23:49 with no money and no credit, which was perfect
23:51 because I didn't have either.
23:53 And I had made every bad financial decision
23:56 for the last two years, so I didn't really trust myself.
24:00 And they're asking for $1,000 for this program
24:03 and I was terrified to do that, put it on a credit card,
24:06 debit card at that, because I didn't even have
24:08 any credit cards anymore.
24:10 But desperate times call for desperate measures.
24:13 I was just desperate enough to actually take action.
24:17 - Did you have any real estate knowledge at this moment?
24:19 - Zero.
24:20 - Had you ever owned your own house?
24:21 - I'd owned my house.
24:22 - But never anything other than your own house?
24:24 - Right, I never had an investment property.
24:27 And they introduced me to a concept called wholesaling,
24:30 which a lot of people don't realize what that is.
24:32 But if you think about, the easiest example I can give
24:37 of real estate wholesaling is that if I went today
24:41 and I bought a lottery ticket at a convenience store here,
24:43 and that ticket happened to win.
24:47 So say it won $30 million, they're going to pay me
24:50 $30 million a year for the next 30 years.
24:53 Well, until I turn that ticket in, the ticket is the asset.
24:59 So this is going in a safety deposit box,
25:01 I'm guarding this with my life.
25:03 This is my ticket to $30 million.
25:07 And so then you've got companies that will come along
25:12 and they will buy that annuity from you.
25:15 And so they will literally come in and say,
25:17 "This ticket is worth $30 million over the next--
25:19 we'll wait, you don't have to wait.
25:22 We'll give you $15 million today, all cash,
25:25 and we'll wait for the $30 million."
25:27 Happens all the time.
25:29 Well, the same thing is true in real estate.
25:31 So when I go put a property under contract,
25:34 I may go find this amazing $2 million house,
25:38 and I don't have-- let's just say I don't have the $2 million.
25:41 Couldn't get the bank financing, all that.
25:43 I may have a 22-year-old kid or something.
25:47 The moment I put it under contract,
25:50 and the contract is now signed,
25:53 the contract becomes the asset.
25:56 And there are cash buyers, investors all over the country
25:59 that will step in and literally buy your place in that contract,
26:02 no different than the lottery ticket.
26:04 So they will come in and say, "Kent or Jeff,
26:06 you've got a $2 million house under contract.
26:08 We think it's going to be worth $3 million
26:10 once we invest $250 grand in fixing it up.
26:13 We'll give you $50,000 right now for that."
26:15 And I literally don't have to show up at the closing table.
26:18 I don't have to do anything.
26:20 I can just make a fee for being smart enough
26:22 to get an asset under contract.
26:24 So I'd never even heard of such a thing.
26:26 But it rang pretty true with what I had been doing in groceries.
26:29 There was a lot more similarities--
26:31 - You're arbitraging real estate now.
26:33 - And so I gravitated to it real quick.
26:36 Did my first deal in less than a month.
26:39 - How did you find that first deal?
26:41 - Door knocking.
26:43 Literally saw a house that was vacant,
26:46 knocked on the door.
26:48 Nobody was there, left a Post-it note on it.
26:51 Somebody picked it up, called me, got it under contract.
26:54 - Wow.
26:56 - Made $8,000 on it.
26:58 Cried like a baby.
27:00 And so, yeah, I mean, I was kind of off to the races.
27:04 I figured out that, oh, man, I could actually make money
27:06 and didn't need a lot of money to go make it happen.
27:09 And, you know, my first--
27:11 - What do you do if no one buys it?
27:13 Get it under contract?
27:14 - Well, when you put it under contract,
27:15 you put it under a contract in what we call
27:17 subject to a 14-day right to inspect.
27:20 So the contract is contingent.
27:24 That 14-day window is your breathing room
27:26 to go find a buyer.
27:28 And if you don't, well, the entire contract hinges
27:31 on your right to inspect.
27:33 So you simply--and that means nothing.
27:35 It does not mean you send an inspector through it.
27:37 It just means, like, well, I looked at it online again
27:39 and I've had second thoughts.
27:42 Ideally, you know, if you're doing it correctly--
27:46 and I'll tell you how--
27:49 I did very well my first 18 months, right?
27:52 Made $1 million, 18 months cash.
27:55 - That's a lot of deals.
27:57 - It was 91 deals.
27:59 91 deals, average deals, like 10 or 12 grand.
28:03 But, you know, now I'm newly married
28:06 and I'm about to have a new little girl on the way.
28:10 And I've figured out really quickly
28:13 that I did not own a business.
28:15 I owned a job.
28:17 And it's real simple to figure out
28:18 if you own a business or a job.
28:19 Just don't show up.
28:21 And if the cash register stops, you know,
28:23 the bank accounts go in the other direction,
28:25 then you own a job because you must do something
28:27 in order to get paid.
28:29 When you own a business, whether you show up or not,
28:31 you get to do things, you don't have to do things.
28:33 So I definitely owned a job.
28:34 And I was making a lot of money,
28:35 but it was all hinged on me.
28:36 And I was like, "I am not--"
28:38 - It's a grind, 91 deals in a year.
28:39 - "I am not--this is not what I want to be doing.
28:41 "And so I'm going to put all the systems and processes
28:44 "and leverage and people in place."
28:45 And so I started doing that.
28:47 And kind of a light bulb went off.
28:50 In the grocery industry, one of the things I had done
28:53 was a concept called reverse wholesaling,
28:56 which had basically taken us from $800 million
28:58 to $1.8 billion in 30 months.
29:03 And as crazy as this sounds, right,
29:07 this was what this novel concept was.
29:11 How about we go to all of our customers
29:13 and ask them if I could sell you anything
29:15 at any price, delivered in any city, on any day,
29:18 what do you want to buy from me?
29:19 And then work backwards, right?
29:21 Do it in reverse.
29:22 And so I was like, "I wonder if that would work
29:24 "in real estate."
29:26 How about I go find who all the best buyers are?
29:30 Who's paying cash in the markets?
29:33 And so I was down in South Florida.
29:34 I went and I basically figured out a way
29:36 that I could go down to the county clerk's office,
29:39 look at all the transactions that happened the week before.
29:42 You can do all this online now.
29:43 You couldn't do it online back then.
29:45 But I would go and look at, okay,
29:47 every time a piece of real estate is sold,
29:49 there's a deed of transfer.
29:52 So the deed changes hands.
29:54 If they used a mortgage or bank,
29:56 then a lien is recorded at the same time.
29:59 So if a deed is recorded, but there is no lien,
30:01 there's only one way they bought that, and that was cash.
30:05 So process of elimination, I started figuring out
30:07 who was all paying cash, started contacting them,
30:09 and said, "If I could sell you anything
30:11 "in any neighborhood at any price,
30:13 "what do you want to buy?
30:14 "You're buying investment properties.
30:15 "How about I just start selling you stuff?"
30:17 And so, to your point,
30:20 is that I started working it backwards.
30:23 And so every deal I was putting under contract,
30:25 I already knew who I was selling it to.
30:27 And so a business that was doing, you know,
30:29 the better part of 60 or 70 houses a year,
30:33 suddenly blew it up doing 300 to 500.
30:36 And started approaching a hustle back then,
30:42 and then turned it into a really, really big business.
30:45 And that's ultimately kind of what put me on the map,
30:47 and then people started paying attention to what I was doing,
30:49 because I was one of the guys that kind of took
30:53 a business mentality and applied it
30:55 to an entrepreneur's hustle, and turned it into a business.
30:59 - There's so much depth and richness
31:02 to what you just illustrated.
31:06 I'm going to take a second.
31:07 Just anyone listening to this, rewind the last four minutes
31:10 and really listen to that,
31:12 because he just gave you a playbook
31:14 to make millions of dollars in whatever vertical you're in.
31:18 If you just understand exactly what Kent just illustrated.
31:21 And when we first met, your ability to build processes
31:24 and develop systems, and it's what we talked about.
31:26 - Yeah. - Day one.
31:27 - Yep, absolutely.
31:28 - I was a digital marketer back then.
31:29 - Yep.
31:30 - And we were playing in that space.
31:31 - Yep.
31:32 - Not real estate, none of the things I'm doing now.
31:34 And that's what attracted me to your brain
31:37 the first minute I ever met you.
31:39 And I'm so glad you just brought that up,
31:40 because I just had a flashback.
31:42 And I learned so much from you then
31:45 about systems and processes,
31:46 and how important it is to turn your hustle into a business.
31:50 And you can't be a hustler forever.
31:52 - Nope.
31:53 Got to make the switch from hustler to CEO.
31:56 And that's the great irony.
31:59 And it's a hard switch to make, by the way.
32:01 - Yeah.
32:02 - Because the thing that got you here
32:04 is the very thing that will actually,
32:05 you know, we've all heard,
32:06 "What gets you here won't get you there."
32:08 Well, I will take it one step further.
32:09 When you're moving from hustler to CEO,
32:12 what got you here, not only will it not get you there,
32:15 it will prevent you from getting there.
32:17 Because that hustler mentality is constantly,
32:21 you know, it's what we've been rewarded for.
32:23 My efforts created this.
32:25 And then suddenly you're trying to turn your brain off
32:27 to where your brain naturally wants to jump in and do it.
32:29 Now, everybody get out of the way.
32:30 I'll do the sales.
32:31 I'll do this.
32:32 Nobody's going to do this.
32:33 And the reality of it is,
32:35 is that as long as that hustler side of your brain
32:37 has a seat at the table,
32:39 you will never be a CEO.
32:42 And you will never put the processes and the systems
32:44 and the leverage and the team in place
32:46 that ultimately will create financial freedom for you.
32:49 And so you have to really embrace that as fat,
32:53 and it will go directly against every instinct you've got.
32:57 It is brutal.
32:58 But when you get through it, it's how it's done.
33:00 And I can attest from personal experience,
33:02 I was a hustler when we met.
33:04 Over the last 11 years,
33:05 I have worked hard to become a CEO in my own career.
33:08 And you've become the ultimate, brother.
33:09 And I'll be honest, it is not easy.
33:11 No.
33:12 And it took a community and a group of my teammates
33:15 to basically force me to do it because to let go.
33:18 Yeah.
33:19 When you know and you see something
33:20 and you see the car about to hit a wall or a perceived wall,
33:23 to not grab the reins.
33:24 That's right.
33:25 It's tough.
33:26 It is tough.
33:27 And it's, but it is,
33:30 it's tough to understand that it is still progress.
33:35 That's what it is because we as entrepreneurs
33:39 live in a very binary environment,
33:41 meaning when I win, we make money.
33:44 Or when I win, we achieve this.
33:46 When I win, this is what we know what success is, right?
33:49 It's black and white.
33:50 And when you're putting,
33:51 when you're making that migration and that evolution,
33:54 success is no longer measured that way.
33:56 Success is measured in are we getting closer
33:58 to where the win can happen without me?
34:00 And that's progress.
34:02 And that is really challenging
34:04 to understand that it's still progress.
34:07 And it's sustainable progress.
34:09 It's predictable.
34:11 I mean, if you think about what you really want in life
34:15 when it comes to building a business,
34:17 what most people are really after is,
34:19 I want to know that, I want security.
34:22 I want to know that all my financial needs
34:24 are taken care of.
34:25 I want to be able to travel with my kids.
34:27 I want to be able to do whatever I want to do,
34:29 whenever I want to, and not worry.
34:31 And I want to know that generationally,
34:34 I've done something where I've created impact in the world
34:37 or I've taken care of multiple generations through my,
34:40 I mean, that's what success really is.
34:42 And none of that is possible.
34:45 Zero of that is possible,
34:47 as long as you are constantly trading hours for dollars.
34:50 And again, back to the litmus test.
34:53 If you, I say this jokingly, but it is true.
34:59 If you want to understand how vulnerable you really are,
35:03 leave for two months and don't tell anybody.
35:08 And if you come back and there is more money
35:10 in your bank account than when you left,
35:12 then you are on the right path.
35:14 Anything less than that, you own a job
35:16 and you've got work to do.
35:17 And then quickly your job becomes,
35:20 I need to fire myself as often as I can.
35:23 Where are the places where this whole thing
35:27 is dependent upon me?
35:28 And I think what happens is, again,
35:31 especially for first-time CEOs,
35:34 they unknowingly build the business
35:40 to funnel all through them.
35:42 So what they've done is just replace one job with another.
35:44 Well, I no longer have to do that,
35:45 but in order for you to do that,
35:46 you've got to ask me about it.
35:48 And they don't realize they're doing this thing.
35:50 And so there's stages and steps to this whole thing.
35:54 And I spend a lot of time coaching people
35:56 on how to get through that.
35:57 But when you are focused on the opportunity,
36:00 understanding what you're really trying to achieve,
36:03 then the obstacles in getting there,
36:05 you'll get through them.
36:06 But if you're focused on all the reasons
36:08 why you can't do it,
36:09 oh, well, nobody's going to care about the business
36:11 as much as I am,
36:12 or nobody's as good a salesman as I am,
36:13 or nobody cares about the details.
36:16 Those are all the crutches we give ourselves to justify.
36:21 And that word "can't" is like the worst word
36:26 I think anybody could possibly use.
36:28 I tell my kids all the time,
36:29 we do not say "can't," we do not say "cannot."
36:32 If you want to be truthful,
36:34 because there's no victims here,
36:35 then just replace it.
36:36 - You don't want to.
36:37 - We choose not to.
36:38 - Or choose not to.
36:39 - Right?
36:40 - Yeah.
36:41 - I can't do this, dad.
36:42 No, that's not true.
36:43 I choose not to.
36:44 It's not a priority.
36:45 - So in my house,
36:46 there's one four-letter word
36:47 that's not allowed in the house,
36:48 and it's "can't."
36:49 - Yeah.
36:50 - I would rather hear every other
36:51 four-letter word you can think of.
36:52 - Well, it's just a cop-out.
36:53 - It's a bullshit word.
36:54 - Yeah, I mean, we are,
36:55 you and I are great examples of it.
36:57 There's nothing special
36:58 about either one of us, right?
36:59 And we know thousands of other guys
37:01 and girls just like us that,
37:03 outside of them being amazing human beings,
37:06 they didn't come with any special gifts
37:09 or talents that all of a sudden
37:10 just made them amazing at business.
37:12 It's this willingness to push hard
37:16 and not use words like "can't" and "cannot."
37:18 It's like, "Let me see if I can."
37:20 - And I say this on stage all the time.
37:21 - Maybe try.
37:22 - I say this every time I'm on stage.
37:23 I'm an ordinary guy who just figured out
37:25 what extra stuff to do
37:26 to get extraordinary results
37:27 and everyone else can do the same thing.
37:29 - Yeah.
37:30 - It's just you gotta learn
37:31 what that formula is.
37:32 - Yeah.
37:33 - And we get caught up in all of the things
37:35 that stand in the way
37:36 that make us feel like,
37:37 "I don't have resources.
37:38 "I don't have millions of dollars,
37:39 "so I can't,"
37:40 and you hear the word "can't."
37:41 - Yeah, yeah.
37:42 - "I don't have the relationships,
37:43 "so I can't."
37:44 - Well, you know, it's funny.
37:45 I use this example with people all the time.
37:47 And it's super morbid,
37:50 but it is extremely helpful
37:53 because I think if anybody is listening to this
37:57 and if they just thought for a moment
38:00 about the most special person in their life,
38:04 the person they care about the most,
38:06 and if somehow, some way, you know,
38:10 that person's life was on the line,
38:13 in other words, Jeff,
38:15 your family's life is on the line
38:18 unless you can go and produce
38:22 a half a million dollars in new sales
38:24 or go sell a hundred new franchises
38:26 in the next 30 days,
38:27 you must get it done.
38:29 Is there any question in your mind
38:32 what would happen?
38:33 - No.
38:34 - And there never is, right?
38:35 Anytime you put somebody in that kind of headspace,
38:37 they're like, "Oh, no, no."
38:38 Okay, so let's just be clear.
38:40 Your whole argument where it's a lack of resources
38:44 goes completely out the door
38:45 because you, by your own admission,
38:47 that you would do whatever it takes,
38:49 you would figure it out, okay?
38:50 So that's true under those circumstances.
38:52 It's true always, by the way.
38:54 So what it means is that
38:55 if you have the ability to raise the stakes
38:57 on yourself mentally
38:59 to where you understand mentally
39:01 it is not about resources or a lack of,
39:03 it is about resourcefulness
39:06 because under the right circumstances,
39:08 you get real resourceful real quick.
39:10 - Yep.
39:11 - And when the priorities were changed,
39:12 the stakes were raised,
39:13 you get real resourceful real quick.
39:15 Resource that you would not sit around and say,
39:16 "Well, I don't know what to do."
39:18 That would never happen, right?
39:20 You would do whatever it took.
39:21 You move heaven and earth for the people we love.
39:24 - Hey, everybody.
39:25 Looking for great insights?
39:26 Entrepreneur.com's podcast network
39:29 is the place for you.
39:30 Check out podcasts like Problem Solvers
39:32 and Smart Passive Income for smart advice.
39:35 Hear true stories on how success happens,
39:37 financial updates on dirty money,
39:40 deep dives with behind the review,
39:42 and food trends on restaurant influencers.
39:44 And don't miss my new show.
39:46 It's all at entrepreneur.com/listen.
39:50 Let's start our success journey today.
39:52 (upbeat music)
39:55 - Hey there, it's your host, Jeff Fenster,
39:57 and I have something very exciting
39:58 to share with you today.
40:00 You know, here on the Jeff Fenster Show,
40:01 we're all about growth,
40:02 both personally and professionally.
40:04 Speaking of growth,
40:05 have you ever heard of Everbull?
40:07 As the proud founder of Everbull,
40:09 I can tell you firsthand
40:10 that we're on a mission to help everyone unevolve,
40:13 to live actively and eat stuff
40:15 that's been around forever.
40:16 Imagine stepping back into a world
40:18 where everything you eat is fresh,
40:20 nourishing, and packed with nutrients.
40:22 At Everbull, we've got you covered
40:24 with our wide range of superfood bowls.
40:26 But it's not just about the food.
40:28 It's about a community of like-minded individuals
40:31 who are determined to embrace
40:32 a vibrant, fulfilling lifestyle.
40:34 Join us on this journey
40:36 as we redefine what it means
40:37 to be healthy and active.
40:38 So if you're ready to unevolve
40:40 and be the best version of yourself,
40:42 head over to everbull.com
40:43 and check out our menu.
40:44 - And so--
40:48 - It's also never been easier
40:49 with the internet and YouTube and Google
40:52 and social media where you can actually connect
40:54 with people who do know what to do
40:56 in a way that we never could.
40:58 - 100%.
40:59 There's nobody that is not accessible to you.
41:00 - So I do this with my oldest daughter
41:02 when she tells me,
41:03 "I don't know how to do that."
41:04 I say, "Open your phone, go to the internet,
41:06 "go to Google and ask it, then do it."
41:09 Simple.
41:10 You can ask Google anything.
41:11 - It's even worse now.
41:12 I mean, go to chat GPT.
41:13 It'll give you literally step-by-step directions
41:17 to do just about anything.
41:18 - Pretty much.
41:19 - Hey, how would you go and create $10,000
41:21 in revenue in an online business
41:23 in the next 30 days if you were 16
41:25 and you lived in San Diego?
41:26 It will tell you, this is exactly what I would do.
41:29 - It'll at least give you a starting point.
41:30 - Right.
41:31 - It will at least give you a starting point.
41:33 - And that's the point, right,
41:34 is that what happens,
41:36 the reason why people say those things,
41:39 'cause I've been doing this a long time, right,
41:41 is it gives them an excuse, right?
41:44 And the reason why people won't go to Google
41:46 or the reason why people won't go to chat GPT
41:48 or won't go is because they're just not committed.
41:51 - Right.
41:52 - Right?
41:53 It's much easier to say it's too hard.
41:54 It's much easier to play the victim card.
41:56 It's much easier to say, "I'm not good enough,"
41:59 or, "They're more prudent."
42:00 - Well, discomfort is that block.
42:04 - Yeah.
42:05 - When you learn to embrace discomfort,
42:06 when you learn to accept that a cold plunge
42:10 or a hot sauna makes your body better,
42:13 running until you can't breathe
42:14 makes your cardiovascular system better,
42:16 restricting eating bad food
42:18 and eating things that maybe don't taste as good
42:20 makes you have longer health.
42:22 Saving money and not binging on the first thing you want
42:25 gives you wealth.
42:26 I mean, there's a thing about restriction and discomfort.
42:30 And when you learn how to live in that,
42:32 success is just right there for you.
42:34 - Yeah.
42:35 - On all things.
42:36 - Well, because, and again, I said this earlier,
42:38 you can count on your competition's mediocrity.
42:41 The reality of it is, just as sure as you and I
42:44 are sitting there, 99% of the people around us
42:49 just won't do.
42:51 So think about how easy it is to be great.
42:54 - Mm-hmm.
42:55 - Right?
42:56 Think about how easy it is to be in the 1%
42:58 because you know 99% can't even do the little things.
43:03 - And they won't.
43:05 - And they won't.
43:06 - They don't want to.
43:07 - Right.
43:08 - So being great is literally a decision to get in the game
43:13 and do the little things that others just simply won't
43:16 and be consistent.
43:17 Don't stop.
43:18 - And what I have found, and this is the whole purpose
43:20 of my show, is when I talk to a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs
43:23 and we'll call them entrepreneurs,
43:25 and people who are struggling,
43:27 I'll call this, they're in the 1.5%.
43:30 Meaning they're better than 98.5%
43:32 because they actually want to do it.
43:34 They just can't figure out what to do.
43:36 And the reason I think they can't figure out what to do
43:38 is because they're caught up in all of the smoke
43:40 and mirrors of industry, right?
43:42 Oh, I'm in real estate.
43:43 I got to learn everything about real estate.
43:45 Well, take a listen.
43:46 If you really listen to what you said,
43:48 you mentioned a few qualities,
43:50 and you talked about getting a little bit better every day,
43:52 which is Kaizen.
43:53 You talked about taking immediate action.
43:55 You talked about being curious and understanding innovation
43:58 and going down to the building
44:00 and looking at every transaction and doing these steps.
44:03 And you mentioned also in your family
44:05 you don't like the word "can't."
44:07 Do you have a written down,
44:09 or do you know a set of core values
44:11 that you live by or your family lives by?
44:13 Yeah, we have--
44:15 Our core values, we basically got off of four questions, right?
44:18 Why are we doing what we're doing as a family?
44:21 What do we stand for?
44:23 What are the values we stand for?
44:24 What do we stand against?
44:26 And what do we believe in so passionately
44:28 that we would be willing to die for it?
44:30 And that has helped us to build a framework
44:34 that keeps all of us very in tune
44:39 with what we stand for
44:41 and what we are trying to accomplish as a company
44:44 and as a family.
44:46 And I think that, again,
44:50 I think that's another great point,
44:51 is that something as simple as sitting down
44:55 and answering those four questions
44:57 is the genesis of core values, of principles.
45:03 Because, again, most will never do that.
45:05 Yeah, and it's so simple.
45:07 Well, I'll give you another great one,
45:09 is that if I ask you today--
45:11 We had 100 people in this room.
45:13 You know it and I know it,
45:15 that if I asked 100 people
45:17 to clearly define for me
45:20 what success looks like in their life,
45:23 exactly where do they want to be in three years,
45:28 it would be 100% couldn't tell me.
45:31 And ironically, I could tell you
45:33 probably 90% of them would answer the question with,
45:38 "Well, I know what I don't want."
45:40 Right?
45:41 And you wonder why,
45:44 you know, as, again,
45:46 you and I both know that you get more of what you focus on
45:48 when it's so readily available,
45:50 the things you don't want in life,
45:51 and you're thinking about those things
45:52 and you're focused
45:53 and they're so right at the tip of your tongue.
45:55 Whether you like it or not,
45:57 you're perpetuating that in your life.
45:59 But yet something that's so simple is,
46:01 what do you actually want most can't define?
46:03 And, you know, as I was driving over here today,
46:07 I got in my car,
46:09 and the very first thing I did was, you know,
46:11 put the address in the GPS.
46:15 If I'm going somewhere I don't know where I'm, you know,
46:18 I'm supposed to be driving to,
46:20 I'm clearly want turn-by-turn directions.
46:22 I want to be successful in getting here on time.
46:25 And people do this hundreds of millions of times a day.
46:28 Over and over and over again.
46:30 If, you know, you and I are going to go grab groceries
46:35 for our wives, for instance,
46:38 and they ask us to pick up a few things,
46:40 you know, if you're like me, it's like,
46:42 "Hey, can you send me a picture of what it is you want?"
46:44 Or, "Text me what you want."
46:45 Or whatever the case it is.
46:47 What I certainly don't do is just go walk up
46:50 a bunch of random aisles and grab a few things
46:52 and come back and dump it on the counter and say,
46:54 "Hey, is any of this stuff what you're looking for?"
46:56 And I certainly didn't just say,
46:58 "Hey, I'm going to drive up here to Carlsbad
47:00 and I'll just, you know, I'll drive around
47:02 until I see Everbole on the outside of the building
47:04 and hopefully I'll run into it." Right?
47:05 - Sure.
47:06 - In either one of those cases, I would sound like an idiot.
47:10 But people do it all the time with their life.
47:12 And, you know, it's the most profound thing
47:14 I think you can do in your life and your business
47:17 is it's very natural in all these little things in our life
47:21 that we start with a destination.
47:23 And then we reverse engineer turn-by-turn directions
47:26 to be successful, but we don't do it with our own lives.
47:29 And if you just sit down and say,
47:33 "This is what I want.
47:35 That's my destination.
47:37 Here's where I'm at.
47:39 What are the turn-by-turn directions I need to get there?
47:42 And if I don't know those directions,
47:44 who are the resources, the people, the podcast
47:46 that can listen to the books I can read
47:47 to help me navigate that safely?"
47:50 Something as simple as that, people won't do.
47:53 It's wild.
47:54 - It is wild.
47:55 - It's troubling.
47:56 - Yeah.
47:57 - Because there's a whole world of people
47:59 that should be successful.
48:00 And success is personal.
48:02 Some people it's financial success.
48:04 Some people it's health and wellness success.
48:06 Some people it's relationships.
48:07 Some people it's they want to write a book.
48:09 And they don't write the first sentence
48:11 because they don't know.
48:12 They look at the entirety of what's in front of them.
48:14 They go, "I can't climb Mount Everest."
48:16 No, you climb Mount Everest, you take one step.
48:19 - One step.
48:20 - And you take the next step.
48:21 And if you don't know which path to go,
48:23 call someone who's done it.
48:24 - And by the way, ain't nobody promised you
48:26 that's going to be easy.
48:27 - Oh no.
48:28 - But it's for sure that's the way it's done.
48:30 It's one step at a time down a predefined path
48:34 with somebody helping you.
48:35 That is for sure the way it's done,
48:37 but nobody's promising you it's going to be easy.
48:39 - So my football coach in high school
48:40 changed my whole life with one line that he told me
48:44 when I was complaining and I was a victim.
48:46 And I said, "He was mad at me
48:47 "because I fumbled the football."
48:49 I was a small five foot seven kid, fast, but very little.
48:53 And my offensive line was not very good.
48:55 And I said, "How do you expect me to run the ball
48:57 "with this offensive line?
48:58 "I can't."
48:59 And he said, "Jeff, you know how much
49:01 "of a bullshit answer that is?
49:03 "There is somebody who is your size
49:04 "with that offensive line and they won.
49:06 "They figured it out.
49:08 "You can be the guy who figured it out
49:09 "or you can be the guy who's sitting on the bench
49:11 "complaining that he couldn't do it
49:12 "when I find someone else who's going to run the ball
49:14 "and make it happen."
49:15 And today I think there's other quotes that are similar,
49:17 which is somebody won with the hand you have
49:20 or there's versions of that.
49:22 But when he said that to me and then benched me
49:24 and I sat on the sideline and I actually watched
49:26 this guy Marcus Morris go in and he ended up rushing
49:28 for like 200 yards and three touchdowns
49:30 and I became the backup running back
49:31 for the rest of my high school career that day.
49:33 So I had plenty of football games
49:35 to sit on the sideline and think about that.
49:37 That moment resonated with me for the rest of my life
49:40 because he actually did win with it.
49:42 And I was faster than him.
49:43 He was a little bigger than me,
49:44 but I was faster than him.
49:45 Why was he able to do it?
49:47 - Well, it's just all between your ears.
49:49 - It's all between your ears.
49:50 - If you, when you learn to harness the power
49:55 of what is between your ears
49:57 and it to give you the strength and the context
50:00 and the framework that you need to just keep pushing,
50:04 guys like us get to win.
50:08 That's what happens.
50:09 I mean, 'cause I'm not,
50:10 there's not one thing that's special about me.
50:12 The only thing that is special about me
50:14 is that I would argue that I have a unique set
50:19 of life experiences as we all do
50:24 that have helped to kind of make me appreciate time
50:28 in a very unique way and make me appreciate,
50:31 it's driven me to put the systems and things in place
50:36 to allow me to get more of it,
50:39 which is maybe very passionate about not hustling,
50:44 being in business and not being a hustler.
50:47 - Well, I can honestly tell you,
50:49 and I've never said this on the show or about anyone
50:52 that I haven't already openly told them,
50:54 but you don't realize that you've been a mentor of mine
50:56 since we met.
50:57 I've learned and crafted a lot of myself from you
51:00 over the years, and I recommend,
51:02 and I got to basically get free,
51:04 being your friend and working alongside you on projects,
51:06 we've gotten to, I've gotten free coaching
51:08 with you not realizing you were a coach,
51:09 just watching how you've done things.
51:11 And I couldn't stress enough to everyone listening,
51:13 especially if you're young in your career or in your path,
51:17 reach out to Kent, take his coaching if he offers it
51:21 or he will offer it, learn from his experiences
51:24 because if you follow what he's talking about right now,
51:27 success is not maybe, it's a guarantee.
51:30 You will be successful.
51:32 You will find a path.
51:33 Kent speaks on stages and I've had the privilege
51:35 of speaking before him and after him,
51:36 and I always stay and listen.
51:37 So when I launched this show,
51:38 you were one of the first guests I had to make sure I got.
51:41 And Kent, I want to thank you for coming on the show.
51:44 - Dude, man, my pleasure.
51:45 We got to do this more often, man.
51:46 - Of course.
51:47 This has been fun.
51:48 Thank you, man.
51:49 - My pleasure, dude.
51:50 - Hey, everyone.
51:53 First, I want to thank all of you for tuning in.
51:55 And if you guys haven't heard about my new book,
51:57 Relationship Bank Account,
51:58 click the link in the show notes
52:00 or search the title on Amazon.
52:01 This book is packed with all my secrets to success
52:04 in both relationships and life.
52:06 Make sure to pick up a copy.
52:08 And if the book helps you on your journey,
52:10 let us know by leaving a review.
52:12 I appreciate all of you
52:13 and can't wait to see you on the next one.
52:15 (upbeat music)
52:17 (upbeat music)
52:22 (upbeat music)
52:27 (upbeat music)